I am a civil liberties lawyer. My book Spying on Democracy: Government Surveillance, Corporate Power and Public Resistance (Lewis Latham preface; City Lights 2013), was published weeks after Edward Snowden’s revelations.

The New York Times featured my “Nerd Scare” legal hotline for Anonymous hackers when I was executive director of the National Lawyers Guild, and my “One Woman’s Data Trail Diary.” Co-host of Law & Disorder Radio, a 60-minute weekly civil liberties on over 100 stations, I have been featured on Bill Moyers & Co., Democracy Now!, New York Times' City Room and Caucus blogs, the Baltimore Sun, Playboy Magazine, Time Life Books, and numerous radio shows.

If this tweet were real, it might help protect America from crippling cyber-attacks that experts warn are inevitable.

In just 15 minutes, adversaries can activate the destruction, through computer commands, of electric generators, financial systems, and nuclear power plants, according to counter-terrorism expert Richard Clarke. He says that the United States is ill-prepared for such a volatile onslaught, the casualties of which will be the civilian public. Our military defense policies are outdated and out of touch with the new contours of cyberwar.

We need an innovative approach to guard against a “Cyber-Geddon.” If prosecutors would stop sending young hackers to prison for breaking into insecure government and corporate websites, they might be national security allies.

Defending America in Cyberwar is the story of talented computer engineers--the best and brightest--whose talents are wasted because they don’t fit the bureaucratic mold. A short-sighted and prideful Justice Department punishes them for exposing of security flaws that render our data vulnerable to malicious attacks. Shouldn’t we learn from them?